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Hermes Agent v0.4.0

Release Date: March 23, 2026

The platform expansion release - OpenAI-compatible API server, 6 new messaging adapters, 4 new inference providers, MCP server management with OAuth 2.1, @ context references, gateway prompt caching, streaming enabled by default, and a sweeping reliability pass with 200+ bug fixes.

โœจ Highlights

  • OpenAI-compatible API server - Expose Hermes as an /v1/chat/completions endpoint with a new /api/jobs REST API for cron job management, hardened with input limits, field whitelists, SQLite-backed response persistence, and CORS origin protection (#1756, #2450, #2456, #2451, #2472)

  • 6 new messaging platform adapters - Signal, DingTalk, SMS (Twilio), Mattermost, Matrix, and Webhook adapters join Telegram, Discord, and WhatsApp. Gateway auto-reconnects failed platforms with exponential backoff (#2206, #1685, #1688, #1683, #2166, #2584)

  • @ context references - Claude Code-style @file and @url context injection with tab completions in the CLI (#2343, #2482)

  • 4 new inference providers - GitHub Copilot (OAuth + token validation), Alibaba Cloud / DashScope, Kilo Code, and OpenCode Zen/Go (#1924, #1879 by @mchzimm, #1673, #1666, #1650)

  • MCP server management CLI - hermes mcp commands for installing, configuring, and authenticating MCP servers with full OAuth 2.1 PKCE flow (#2465)

  • Gateway prompt caching - Cache AIAgent instances per session, preserving Anthropic prompt cache across turns for dramatic cost reduction on long conversations (#2282, #2284, #2361)

  • Context compression overhaul - Structured summaries with iterative updates, token-budget tail protection, configurable summary endpoint, and fallback model support (#2323, #1727, #2224)

  • Streaming enabled by default - CLI streaming on by default with proper spinner/tool progress display during streaming mode, plus extensive linebreak and concatenation fixes (#2340, #2161, #2258)

๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ CLI & User Experience

New Commands & Interactions

  • @ context completions - Tab-completable @file/@url references that inject file content or web pages into the conversation (#2482, #2343)
  • /statusbar - Toggle a persistent config bar showing model + provider info in the prompt (#2240, #1917)
  • /queue - Queue prompts for the agent without interrupting the current run (#2191, #2469)
  • /permission - Switch approval mode dynamically during a session (#2207)
  • /browser - Interactive browser sessions from the CLI (#2273, #1814)
  • /cost - Live pricing and usage tracking in gateway mode (#2180)
  • /approve and /deny - Replaced bare text approval in gateway with explicit commands (#2002)

Streaming & Display

  • Streaming enabled by default in CLI (#2340)
  • Show spinners and tool progress during streaming mode (#2161)
  • Show reasoning/thinking blocks when show_reasoning enabled (#2118)
  • Context pressure warnings for CLI and gateway (#2159)
  • Fix: streaming chunks concatenated without whitespace (#2258)
  • Fix: iteration boundary linebreak prevents stream concatenation (#2413)
  • Fix: defer streaming linebreak to prevent blank line stacking (#2473)
  • Fix: suppress spinner animation in non-TTY environments (#2216)
  • Fix: display provider and endpoint in API error messages (#2266)
  • Fix: resolve garbled ANSI escape codes in status printouts (#2448)
  • Fix: update gold ANSI color to true-color format (#2246)
  • Fix: normalize toolset labels and use skin colors in banner (#1912)

CLI Polish

  • Fix: prevent 'Press ENTER to continue...' on exit (#2555)
  • Fix: flush stdout during agent loop to prevent macOS display freeze (#1654)
  • Fix: show human-readable error when hermes setup hits permissions error (#2196)
  • Fix: /stop command crash + UnboundLocalError in streaming media delivery (#2463)
  • Fix: allow custom/local endpoints without API key (#2556)
  • Fix: Kitty keyboard protocol Shift+Enter for Ghostty/WezTerm (attempted + reverted due to prompt_toolkit crash) (#2345, #2349)

Configuration

  • ${ENV_VAR} substitution in config.yaml (#2684)
  • Real-time config reload - config.yaml changes apply without restart (#2210)
  • custom_models.yaml for user-managed model additions (#2214)
  • Priority-based context file selection + CLAUDE.md support (#2301)
  • Merge nested YAML sections instead of replacing on config update (#2213)
  • Fix: config.yaml provider key overrides env var silently (#2272)
  • Fix: log warning instead of silently swallowing config.yaml errors (#2683)
  • Fix: disabled toolsets re-enable themselves after hermes tools (#2268)
  • Fix: platform default toolsets silently override tool deselection (#2624)
  • Fix: honor bare YAML approvals.mode: off (#2620)
  • Fix: hermes update use .[all] extras with fallback (#1728)
  • Fix: hermes update prompt before resetting working tree on stash conflicts (#2390)
  • Fix: use git pull --rebase in update/install to avoid divergent branch error (#2274)
  • Fix: add zprofile fallback and create zshrc on fresh macOS installs (#2320)
  • Fix: remove ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL env var to avoid collisions (#1675)
  • Fix: don't ask IMAP password if already in keyring or env (#2212)
  • Fix: OpenCode Zen/Go show OpenRouter models instead of their own (#2277)

๐Ÿ—๏ธ Core Agent & Architecture

New Providers

  • GitHub Copilot - Full OAuth auth, API routing, token validation, and 400k context. (#1924, #1896, #1879 by @mchzimm, #2507)
  • Alibaba Cloud / DashScope - Full integration with DashScope v1 runtime, model dot preservation, and 401 auth fixes (#1673, #2332, #2459)
  • Kilo Code - First-class inference provider (#1666)
  • OpenCode Zen and OpenCode Go - New provider backends (#1650, #2393 by @0xbyt4)
  • NeuTTS - Local TTS provider backend with built-in setup flow, replacing the old optional skill (#1657, #1664)

Provider Improvements

  • Eager fallback to backup model on rate-limit errors (#1730)
  • Endpoint metadata for custom model context and pricing; query local servers for actual context window size (#1906, #2091 by @dusterbloom)
  • Context length detection overhaul - models.dev integration, provider-aware resolution, fuzzy matching for custom endpoints, /v1/props for llama.cpp (#2158, #2051, #2403)
  • Model catalog updates - gpt-5.4-mini, gpt-5.4-nano, healer-alpha, haiku-4.5, minimax-m2.7, claude 4.6 at 1M context (#1913, #1915, #1900, #2155, #2474)
  • Custom endpoint improvements - model.base_url in config.yaml, api_mode override for responses API, allow endpoints without API key, fail fast on missing keys (#2330, #1651, #2556, #2445, #1994, #1998)
  • Inject model and provider into system prompt (#1929)
  • Tie api_mode to provider config instead of env var (#1656)
  • Fix: prevent Anthropic token leaking to third-party anthropic_messages providers (#2389)
  • Fix: prevent Anthropic fallback from inheriting non-Anthropic base_url (#2388)
  • Fix: auxiliary_is_nous flag never resets - leaked Nous tags to other providers (#1713)
  • Fix: Anthropic tool_choice 'none' still allowed tool calls (#1714)
  • Fix: Mistral parser nested JSON fallback extraction (#2335)
  • Fix: MiniMax 401 auth resolved by defaulting to anthropic_messages (#2103)
  • Fix: case-insensitive model family matching (#2350)
  • Fix: ignore placeholder provider keys in activation checks (#2358)
  • Fix: Preserve Ollama model:tag colons in context length detection (#2149)
  • Fix: recognize Claude Code OAuth credentials in startup gate (#1663)
  • Fix: detect Claude Code version dynamically for OAuth user-agent (#1670)
  • Fix: OAuth flag stale after refresh/fallback (#1890)
  • Fix: auxiliary client skips expired Codex JWT (#2397)

Agent Loop

  • Gateway prompt caching - Cache AIAgent per session, keep assistant turns, fix session restore (#2282, #2284, #2361)
  • Context compression overhaul - Structured summaries, iterative updates, token-budget tail protection, configurable summary_base_url (#2323, #1727, #2224)
  • Pre-call sanitization and post-call tool guardrails (#1732)
  • Auto-recover from provider-rejected tool_choice by retrying without (#2174)
  • Background memory/skill review replaces inline nudges (#2235)
  • SOUL.md as primary agent identity instead of hardcoded default (#1922)
  • Fix: prevent silent tool result loss during context compression (#1993)
  • Fix: handle empty/null function arguments in tool call recovery (#2163)
  • Fix: handle API refusal responses gracefully instead of crashing (#2156)
  • Fix: prevent stuck agent loop on malformed tool calls (#2114)
  • Fix: return JSON parse error to model instead of dispatching with empty args (#2342)
  • Fix: consecutive assistant message merge drops content on mixed types (#1703)
  • Fix: message role alternation violations in JSON recovery and error handler (#1722)
  • Fix: compression_attempts resets each iteration - allowed unlimited compressions (#1723)
  • Fix: length_continue_retries never resets - later truncations got fewer retries (#1717)
  • Fix: compressor summary role violated consecutive-role constraint (#1720, #1743)
  • Fix: remove hardcoded gemini-3-flash-preview as default summary model (#2464)
  • Fix: correctly handle empty tool results (#2201)
  • Fix: crash on None entry in tool_calls list (#2209 by @0xbyt4, #2316)
  • Fix: per-thread persistent event loops in worker threads (#2214 by @jquesnelle)
  • Fix: prevent 'event loop already running' when async tools run in parallel (#2207)
  • Fix: strip ANSI at the source - clean terminal output before it reaches the model (#2115)
  • Fix: skip top-level cache_control on role:tool for OpenRouter (#2391)
  • Fix: delegate tool - save parent tool names before child construction mutates global (#2083 by @ygd58, #1894)
  • Fix: only strip last assistant message if empty string (#2326)

Session & Memory

  • Session search and management slash commands (#2198)
  • Auto session titles and .hermes.md project config (#1712)
  • Fix: concurrent memory writes silently drop entries - added file locking (#1726)
  • Fix: search all sources by default in session_search (#1892)
  • Fix: handle hyphenated FTS5 queries and preserve quoted literals (#1776)
  • Fix: skip corrupt lines in load_transcript instead of crashing (#1744)
  • Fix: normalize session keys to prevent case-sensitive duplicates (#2157)
  • Fix: prevent session_search crash when no sessions exist (#2194)
  • Fix: reset token counters on new session for accurate usage display (#2101 by @InB4DevOps)
  • Fix: prevent stale memory overwrites by flush agent (#2687)
  • Fix: remove synthetic error message injection, fix session resume after repeated failures (#2303)
  • Fix: quiet mode with --resume now passes conversation_history (#2357)
  • Fix: unify resume logic in batch mode (#2331)

Honcho Memory

  • Honcho config fixes and @ context reference integration (#2343)
  • Self-hosted / Docker configuration documentation (#2475)

๐Ÿ“ฑ Messaging Platforms (Gateway)

New Platform Adapters

  • Signal Messenger - Full adapter with attachment handling, group message filtering, and Note to Self echo-back protection (#2206, #2400, #2297, #2156)
  • DingTalk - Adapter with gateway wiring and setup docs (#1685, #1690, #1692)
  • SMS (Twilio) (#1688)
  • Mattermost - With @-mention-only channel filter (#1683, #2443)
  • Matrix - With vision support and image caching (#1683, #2520)
  • Webhook - Platform adapter for external event triggers (#2166)
  • OpenAI-compatible API server - /v1/chat/completions endpoint with /api/jobs cron management (#1756, #2450, #2456)

Telegram Improvements

  • MarkdownV2 support - strikethrough, spoiler, blockquotes, escape parentheses/braces/backslashes/backticks (#2199, #2200 by @llbn, #2386)
  • Auto-detect HTML tags and use parse_mode=HTML (#1709)
  • Telegram group vision support + thread-based sessions (#2153)
  • Auto-reconnect polling after network interruption (#2517)
  • Aggregate split text messages before dispatching (#1674)
  • Fix: streaming config bridge, not-modified, flood control (#1782, #1783)
  • Fix: edited_message event crashes (#2074)
  • Fix: retry 409 polling conflicts before giving up (#2312)
  • Fix: topic delivery via platform:chat_id:thread_id format (#2455)

Discord Improvements

  • Document caching and text-file injection (#2503)
  • Persistent typing indicator for DMs (#2468)
  • Discord DM vision - inline images + attachment analysis (#2186)
  • Persist thread participation across gateway restarts (#1661)
  • Fix: gateway crash on non-ASCII guild names (#2302)
  • Fix: thread permission errors (#2073)
  • Fix: slash event routing in threads (#2460)
  • Fix: remove bugged followup messages + /ask command (#1836)
  • Fix: graceful WebSocket reconnection (#2127)
  • Fix: voice channel TTS when streaming enabled (#2322)

WhatsApp & Other Adapters

  • WhatsApp: outbound send_message routing (#1769 by @sai-samarth), LID format self-chat (#1667), reply_prefix config fix (#1923), restart on bridge child exit (#2334), image/bridge improvements (#2181)
  • Matrix: correct reply_to_message_id parameter (#1895), bare media types fix (#1736)
  • Mattermost: MIME types for media attachments (#2329)

Gateway Core

  • Auto-reconnect failed platforms with exponential backoff (#2584)
  • Notify users when session auto-resets (#2519)
  • Reply-to message context for out-of-session replies (#1662)
  • Ignore unauthorized DMs config option (#1919)
  • Fix: /reset in thread-mode resets global session instead of thread (#2254)
  • Fix: deliver MEDIA: files after streaming responses (#2382)
  • Fix: cap interrupt recursion depth to prevent resource exhaustion (#1659)
  • Fix: detect stopped processes and release stale locks on --replace (#2406, #1908)
  • Fix: PID-based wait with force-kill for gateway restart (#1902)
  • Fix: prevent --replace mode from killing the caller process (#2185)
  • Fix: /model shows active fallback model instead of config default (#1660)
  • Fix: /title command fails when session doesn't exist in SQLite yet (#2379 by @ten-jampa)
  • Fix: process /queue'd messages after agent completion (#2469)
  • Fix: strip orphaned tool_results + let /reset bypass running agent (#2180)
  • Fix: prevent agents from starting gateway outside systemd management (#2617)
  • Fix: prevent systemd restart storm on gateway connection failure (#2327)
  • Fix: include resolved node path in systemd unit (#1767 by @sai-samarth)
  • Fix: send error details to user in gateway outer exception handler (#1966)
  • Fix: improve error handling for 429 usage limits and 500 context overflow (#1839)
  • Fix: add all missing platform allowlist env vars to startup warning check (#2628)
  • Fix: media delivery fails for file paths containing spaces (#2621)
  • Fix: duplicate session-key collision in multi-platform gateway (#2171)
  • Fix: Matrix and Mattermost never report as connected (#1711)
  • Fix: PII redaction config never read - missing yaml import (#1701)
  • Fix: NameError on skill slash commands (#1697)
  • Fix: persist watcher metadata in checkpoint for crash recovery (#1706)
  • Fix: pass message_thread_id in send_image_file, send_document, send_video (#2339)
  • Fix: media-group aggregation on rapid successive photo messages (#2160)

๐Ÿ”ง Tool System

MCP Enhancements

  • MCP server management CLI + OAuth 2.1 PKCE auth (#2465)
  • Expose MCP servers as standalone toolsets (#1907)
  • Interactive MCP tool configuration in hermes tools (#1694)
  • Fix: MCP-OAuth port mismatch, path traversal, and shared handler state (#2552)
  • Fix: preserve MCP tool registrations across session resets (#2124)
  • Fix: concurrent file access crash + duplicate MCP registration (#2154)
  • Fix: normalise MCP schemas + expand session list columns (#2102)
  • Fix: tool_choice mcp_ prefix handling (#1775)

Web Tool Backends

  • Tavily as web search/extract/crawl backend (#1731)
  • Parallel as alternative web search/extract backend (#1696)
  • Configurable web backend - Firecrawl/BeautifulSoup/Playwright selection (#2256)
  • Fix: whitespace-only env vars bypass web backend detection (#2341)

New Tools

  • IMAP email reading and sending (#2173)
  • STT (speech-to-text) tool using Whisper API (#2072)
  • Route-aware pricing estimates (#1695)

Tool Improvements

  • TTS: base_url support for OpenAI TTS provider (#2064 by @hanai)
  • Vision: configurable timeout, tilde expansion in file paths, DM vision with multi-image and base64 fallback (#2480, #2585, #2211)
  • Browser: race condition fix in session creation (#1721), TypeError on unexpected LLM params (#1735)
  • File tools: strip ANSI escape codes from write_file and patch content (#2532), include pagination args in repeated search key (#1824 by @cutepawss), improve fuzzy matching accuracy + position calculation refactor (#2096, #1681)
  • Code execution: resource leak and double socket close fix (#2381)
  • Delegate: thread safety for concurrent subagent delegation (#1672), preserve parent agent's tool list after delegation (#1778)
  • Fix: make concurrent tool batching path-aware for file mutations (#1914)
  • Fix: chunk long messages in send_message_tool before platform dispatch (#1646)
  • Fix: add missing 'messaging' toolset (#1718)
  • Fix: prevent unavailable tool names from leaking into model schemas (#2072)
  • Fix: pass visited set by reference to prevent diamond dependency duplication (#2311)
  • Fix: Daytona sandbox lookup migrated from find_one to get/list (#2063 by @rovle)

๐Ÿงฉ Skills Ecosystem

Skills System Improvements

  • Agent-created skills - Caution-level findings allowed, dangerous skills ask instead of block (#1840, #2446)
  • --yes flag to bypass confirmation in /skills install and uninstall (#1647)
  • Disabled skills respected across banner, system prompt, and slash commands (#1897)
  • Fix: skills custom_tools import crash + sandbox file_tools integration (#2239)
  • Fix: agent-created skills with pip requirements crash on install (#2145)
  • Fix: race condition in Skills.__init__ when hub.yaml missing (#2242)
  • Fix: validate skill metadata before install and block duplicates (#2241)
  • Fix: skills hub inspect/resolve - 4 bugs in inspect, redirects, discovery, tap list (#2447)
  • Fix: agent-created skills keep working after session reset (#2121)

New Skills

  • OCR-and-documents - PDF/DOCX/XLS/PPTX/image OCR with optional GPU (#2236, #2461)
  • Huggingface-hub bundled skill (#1921)
  • Sherlock OSINT username search (#1671)
  • Meme-generation - Image generator with Pillow (#2344)
  • Bioinformatics gateway skill - index to 400+ bio skills (#2387)
  • Inference.sh skill (terminal-based) (#1686)
  • Base blockchain optional skill (#1643)
  • 3D-model-viewer optional skill (#2226)
  • FastMCP optional skill (#2113)
  • Hermes-agent-setup skill (#1905)

๐Ÿ”Œ Plugin System Enhancements

  • TUI extension hooks - Build custom CLIs on top of Hermes (#2333)
  • hermes plugins install/remove/list commands (#2337)
  • Slash command registration for plugins (#2359)
  • session:end lifecycle event hook (#1725)
  • Fix: require opt-in for project plugin discovery (#2215)

๐Ÿ”’ Security & Reliability

Security

  • SSRF protection for vision_tools and web_tools (#2679)
  • Shell injection prevention in _expand_path via ~user path suffix (#2685)
  • Block untrusted browser-origin API server access (#2451)
  • Block sandbox backend creds from subprocess env (#1658)
  • Block @ references from reading secrets outside workspace (#2601 by @Gutslabs)
  • Malicious code pattern pre-exec scanner for terminal_tool (#2245)
  • Harden terminal safety and sandbox file writes (#1653)
  • PKCE verifier leak fix + OAuth refresh Content-Type (#1775)
  • Eliminate SQL string formatting in execute() calls (#2061 by @dusterbloom)
  • Harden jobs API - input limits, field whitelist, startup check (#2456)

Reliability

  • Thread locks on 4 SessionDB methods (#1704)
  • File locking for concurrent memory writes (#1726)
  • Handle OpenRouter errors gracefully (#2112)
  • Guard print() calls against OSError (#1668)
  • Safely handle non-string inputs in redacting formatter (#2392, #1700)
  • ACP: preserve session provider on model switch, persist sessions to disk (#2380, #2071)
  • API server: persist ResponseStore to SQLite across restarts (#2472)
  • Fix: fetch_nous_models always TypeError from positional args (#1699)
  • Fix: resolve merge conflict markers in cli.py breaking startup (#2347)
  • Fix: minisweagent_path.py missing from wheel (#2098 by @JiwaniZakir)

Cron System

  • [SILENT] response - cron agents can suppress delivery (#1833)
  • Scale missed-job grace window with schedule frequency (#2449)
  • Recover recent one-shot jobs (#1918)
  • Fix: normalize repeat<=0 to None - jobs deleted after first run when LLM passes -1 (#2612 by @Mibayy)
  • Fix: Matrix added to scheduler delivery platform_map (#2167 by @buntingszn)
  • Fix: naive ISO timestamps without timezone - jobs fire at wrong time (#1729)
  • Fix: get_due_jobs reads jobs.json twice - race condition (#1716)
  • Fix: silent jobs return empty response for delivery skip (#2442)
  • Fix: stop injecting cron outputs into gateway session history (#2313)
  • Fix: close abandoned coroutine when asyncio.run() raises RuntimeError (#2317)

๐Ÿงช Testing

  • Resolve all consistently failing tests (#2488)
  • Replace FakePath with monkeypatch for Python 3.12 compat (#2444)
  • Align Hermes setup and full-suite expectations (#1710)

๐Ÿ“š Documentation

  • Comprehensive docs update for recent features (#1693, #2183)
  • Alibaba Cloud and DingTalk setup guides (#1687, #1692)
  • Detailed skills documentation (#2244)
  • Honcho self-hosted / Docker configuration (#2475)
  • Context length detection FAQ and quickstart references (#2179)
  • Fix docs inconsistencies across reference and user guides (#1995)
  • Fix MCP install commands - use uv, not bare pip (#1909)
  • Replace ASCII diagrams with Mermaid/lists (#2402)
  • Gemini OAuth provider implementation plan (#2467)
  • Discord Server Members Intent marked as required (#2330)
  • Fix MDX build error in api-server.md (#1787)
  • Align venv path to match installer (#2114)
  • New skills added to hub index (#2281)

๐Ÿ‘ฅ Contributors

Core

  • @teknium1 (Teknium) - 280 PRs

Community Contributors

  • @mchzimm (to_the_max) - GitHub Copilot provider integration (#1879)
  • @jquesnelle (Jeffrey Quesnelle) - Per-thread persistent event loops fix (#2214)
  • @llbn (lbn) - Telegram MarkdownV2 strikethrough, spoiler, blockquotes, and escape fixes (#2199, #2200)
  • @dusterbloom - SQL injection prevention + local server context window querying (#2061, #2091)
  • @0xbyt4 - Anthropic tool_calls None guard + OpenCode-Go provider config fix (#2209, #2393)
  • @sai-samarth (Saisamarth) - WhatsApp send_message routing + systemd node path (#1769, #1767)
  • @Gutslabs (Guts) - Block @ references from reading secrets (#2601)
  • @Mibayy (Mibay) - Cron job repeat normalization (#2612)
  • @ten-jampa (Tenzin Jampa) - Gateway /title command fix (#2379)
  • @cutepawss (lila) - File tools search pagination fix (#1824)
  • @hanai (Hanai) - OpenAI TTS base_url support (#2064)
  • @rovle (Lovre Peลกut) - Daytona sandbox API migration (#2063)
  • @buntingszn (bunting szn) - Matrix cron delivery support (#2167)
  • @InB4DevOps - Token counter reset on new session (#2101)
  • @JiwaniZakir (Zakir Jiwani) - Missing file in wheel fix (#2098)
  • @ygd58 (buray) - Delegate tool parent tool names fix (#2083)

Full Changelog: v2026.3.17...v2026.3.23

Frequently Asked Questions

What changed in Hermes Agent v0.4.0?

The platform expansion release - OpenAI-compatible API server, 6 new messaging adapters, 4 new inference providers, MCP server management with OAuth 2.1, @ context references, gateway prompt caching...

When was Hermes Agent v0.4.0 released?

March 24, 2026

โ† v0.3.0 - Patch Release | v0.5.0 - Patch Release โ†’

โ†‘ Changelog Home

This Hermes repo is one of the largest structured collections of public AI, automation, business, and technology documentation. Content remains attributed to original authors and repositories. Indexed and organized by www.CorpusIQ.io.

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